Jonathan Green's Blog, page 33

Steampunk Thursday: Anno Frankenstein

Ten years ago*, Abaddon Books published by seventh Ulysses Quicksilver adventure, Anno Frankenstein . Here's the blurb taken from Amazon:

Ulysses Quicksilver, agent of the crown, jumps into a time vortex pursuing Daniel Dashwood, a madman bent on sharing modern technology with Hitler’s forces and changing history to suit his evil ends.

Rewind several decades, to the time of the Second Great War, to Darmstadt. The Nazis are battling the steampunk empire of Magna Britannia, cooking up necrotic super-soldiers in the gothic towers of Castle Frankenstein.

In the forests outside the castle, other forces are gathering. Ulysses’ father is there, proving that dashing good looks and a talent for swashbuckling adventures run in the family, and wondering why his British masters have partnered him with weakling scientist Dr. Jekyll. The ladies of the Monstrous Regiment are also there to help, but there may be other gothic monsters in the hills... 

“Jonathan Green gets mileage out of his monsters, with big action set-pieces that read like things we’d like to see in a rip-roaring summer movie.” - SFX Magazine

I had a lot of fun, riffing off the works of Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Stan Lee et al, and I think that comes through in the novel, which is the longest** Ulysses Quicksilver adventure in terms of page count.

If you've yet to read it yourself, the good news is that Anno Frankenstein is is in Rebellion Publishing's January ‘Time Travel’ eBook sale. The eBook is available worldwide, until the end of the month, for only 99p! However, please not that this discounted price is only valid on the Rebellion Publishing webshop.

So what are you waiting for? Why not download it today?

* Yes, you read that right. Ten. Years.

** If I'm remembering that rightly. If not, it's probably Human Nature.

Alice's Nightmare in Italy

Today is Twelfth Night, which in Italy is the time the kindly witch La Befana leaves gifts for good little boys and girls. Which is why the Italian language edition of Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland is released today.

L'incubo di Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie was teased back in March, and was supposed to have launched last April at the Modena Play games festival, with Yours Truly there in person. However, the whole world was caught up in the COVID nightmare at the time* so publication was delayed until today.
As you can see, the Italian edition features two different covers - one that reuses the artwork from Mantikore-Verlag's German language edition and one that was inspired by the English paperback.

The inside of the dust jacket features a map of Wonderland by original artist Kev Crossley. The map was commissioned for the Italian edition but the team at Raven Distribution very kindly allowed me to use it in the 5th anniversary hardback , which just happened to come out first
And here's the back cover of the Italian hardback.

* As it is now.

Gamebook Friday: Alice's Nightmare in Japan

Today, the Japanese edition of Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland is released. If you are interested, you can find it here.

As far as I know*, this is the first book of mine that has appeared in Japanese. As a result I needed a little help understanding what was what on the cover, so my Japanese publisher kindly sent me this:

* You never can tell with some licensed work for hire stuff. For example, the first time I discovered Crisis on Coruscant, my Star Wars Clone Wars gamebook, had been published in German was when I was looking round a bookshop in Vienna, Austria.

Review of the Year - 2020

Well, I think we all know what 2020 will be known as in the future. But for me as an author, 2020 will also be remembered as the Year of ACE Gamebooks Roleplay, which gives me a good catch-all term for both my gamebooks and RPG line.

Despite only having one major publication this year - 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas* - new foreign editions of my ACE Gamebooks continued to be released, even though trips to Italy and Germany** were both cancelled.

The ACE Gamebooks website received an upgrade, there were numerous online live playthrough of my books, and I released a 5th anniversary edition of Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland, more in line with the hardbacks of the rest of the series.

I have also continued to work on Dracula - Curse of the Vampire, although the tragically premature death of Martin McKenna inevitably delayed the book and forced a search for a new illustrator. Fortunately Hauke Kock has agreed to take on the task of illustrating my longest gamebook yet. If you've not seen it yet elsewhere, here's one of his finished images for the adventure.

2020 saw the release of a number of audiobooks bearing my name, including The Doll's House , The Serpent's Egg , and Wonderland .

Behind the scenes I have also worked on some other interactive fiction-style projects, which I expect will see the light of day next year. I had hoped to submit various short stories to various anthologies, but unfortunately just didn't have the time.***

Currently I am trying to work out which Kickstarters to run when, in order to fund production of the next ACE Gamebook and ACE Gamebooks Roleplay RPG. And between them they are going to take you to different parts of the globe... Expect to see more news before the end of January.

And on that note I would like to wish you a Happy New Year, and here's hoping for a better 2021!

* Print versions of which are available now!

** Along with their associated book launches.

*** Writing a short story takes far longer than the limited word count might have you believe.

The 12 Days of Christmas - Day 12: Merry Christmas!

I would just like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and here's hoping for a better 2021!

And if you do happen to receive a copy of 'TWAS - The Krampus Night Before Christmas today, or have a chance to run a session of 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas, do let me know, either here, or via Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

And please leave a review as well, on DriveThruRPG, or Amazon, or anywhere else for that matter.

Happy Christmas!

The 12 Days of Christmas - Day 11: 'TWAS the Soundtrack Before Christmas

What could be better than reading through 'TWAS - The Krampus Night Before Christmas, or taking part in a session of 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas, than doing so with a soundtrack of appropriate tracks playing in the background?

And for that reason, I have created a 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas Playlist on Spotify.

The order of the tracks effectively follows the order of events in the game, from the exploration of the house at the beginning, followed by the frantic sleigh ride, to the trek through the wintry wilderness, with a stop off at the Snow Queen's castle, and finally the arrival of Santa's workshop and the demonic ritual right at the end.

Don't forget, you can buy 'TWAS - The Krampus Night Before Christmas here, and 'TWAS - The Roleplaying Game Before Christmas here.

The 12 Days of Christmas - Day 10: Scrooge and Marley (Deceased)

Happy Solstice Day!

First published three years ago, in 2017, the premise of Scrooge and Marley (Deceased): The Haunted Man was that Ebenezer Scrooge and the ghost of of Jacob Marley work together to solve mysteries of an occult nature within the Victorian world of Charles Dickens' books.

The intention was to write more stories set within this world, and even a gamebook, but the adventures of this pair of occult detectives didn't take off in the way that I had hoped.

I did publish another story, Murder in the Cathedral, and have plotted out four more, but when or if they appear, we will have to wait and see...

     
“I come this night to ask for your help, Ebenezer,” the ghost said.

Scrooge and Marley (Deceased): The Haunted Man
A year on from the events of A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge finds himself visited once again by the ghost of his late business partner, Jacob Marley, who brings with him a new proposition. Just as Marley helped Scrooge to avoid the cruel fate that the last of the Three Spirits foretold, Marley wants Scrooge to help him reduce his time in Purgatory.

And so begins an epic adventure that will see the former friends face off against all manner of phantasms, freaks and fiends, with just one thing at stake… Everything!

      


Scrooge and Marley (Deceased): Murder in the Cathedral
Ebenezer Scrooge and his ghost-hunting partner Jacob Marley (already a ghost himself) visit the cathedral city of Cloisterham in order to investigate the disappearance of a young man... A certain Mr Edwin Drood.
      

The 12 Days of Christmas - Day 9: 'TWAS Live!

If you are free around 2:00pm GMT today (Saturday 19 December) why not check out Vicki from Girls That Game's* Twitch stream? She is going to be playing through the fifth ACE Gamebook, 'TWAS - The Krampus Night Before Christmas.

Vicki has spent a great deal of effort making it look and sound amazing. And if you can't watch it live, don't worry - it will be available to view later on both Twitch and YouTube.

If you're looking for a suitable 'TWAS soundtrack to listen to whilst reading through the gamebook yourself, I would suggest a mixture of the Krampus movie OST, Batman: Arkham Origins, and the Home Alone OST.

Good luck, Vicki! Krampus is on his way...

* Vicki is actually the founder of Girls That Game.

The 12 Days of Christmas - Day 8: Christmas Past

Twelve years ago I wrote a festive-themed Ulysses Quicksilver short story, which was published with my third Pax Britannia novel Human Nature.

Christmas Past, as the story was called, featured a murder mystery set in Oxford, or at least the Pax Britannia universe version of the City of Dreaming Spires.

You can still read Christmas Past, as it appears in the Ulysses Quicksilver Omnibus Vol. 1, which is still on sale from Amazon.

The 12 Days of Christmas - Day 7: Gaze upon this Festive Feast of Dredd

Available to buy now from Rebellion Publishing is Judge Fear's Big Day Out and Other Stories, edited by Dredd veteran Michael Carroll, which gathers the very best short stories from more than a decade of the Judge Dredd Megazine, including stories by legends Alan Grant, Gordon Rennie and Simon Spurrier, among countless others…

Two of the four short stories of mine that appear in the anthology are festive tales.
You'd Better be Good, for Goodness' Sake... first appeared in Judge Dredd Megazine #355, back in 2014, while  Miracle on 34th and Peltzer  was published a year later, in 2015, in the bumper Christmas issue of  2000AD . 
 
If you've not read them before, pick up  Judge Fear's Big Day Out and Other Stories  now.